April 28, 2008

Dana Milbank says that Wright's speech today may have doomed the Obama candidacy. He summarizes the Q&A session pithily:

His claim that the September 11 attacks mean "America's chickens are coming home to roost"?

Wright defended it: "Jesus said, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic divisive principles."

His views on Farrakhan and Israel? "Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion. He was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter's being vilified for and Bishop Tutu's being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago. He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century; that's what I think about him.... Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color."

He denounced those who "can worship God on Sunday morning, wearing a black clergy robe, and kill others on Sunday evening, wearing a white Klan robe." He praised the communist Sandinista regime of Nicaragua. He renewed his belief that the government created AIDS as a means of genocide against people of color ("I believe our government is capable of doing anything").

Some of the comments that Reverend Wright has made offended me and I understand why they offend the American people. He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign.

So bland. So uninspiring. Obama is letting Wright overpower him.

"Wright has now removed any guilt or conflict Obama might feel about denouncing him and his approach to race and politics," says Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan had been giving Wright a pass, but now he says:

[What Wright] said today extemporaneously, the way in which he said it, the unrepentant manner in which he reiterated some of his most absurd and offensive views, his attempt to equate everything he believes with the black church as a whole, and his open public embrace of Farrakhan and hostility to the existence of Israel Zionism, make any further defense of him impossible. This was a calculated, ugly, repulsive, vile display of arrogance, egotism, and self-regard.

"Wright has now removed any guilt or conflict Obama might feel about denouncing him and his approach to race and politics," says Andrew Sullivan.

I give it... hm, three days. Three days of Obama not denouncing Wright and his approach to race and politics, before Sullivan cooks up another silly excuse for why there's really nothing wrong with the Obama-Wright connection anyway.

That's Obama's whole shtick. He's the Negro who doesn't frighten. Whites, that is. Why do you think they have Obasms over him? The relief. Sweet Jesus, the relief! Finally, a nice nonthreatening Black who'll allow us to do what we've been dying to do, vote for a Black president, a Black president who'll be SAFE. That's the whole strategy. Beyond that there's nothing. Nothing.

Wright's obvious hostility to Obama was the stunner from today. The old crabs in a barrel analogy ocmes to mind. Wright is willing to destroy Obama's candidacy in order to promote himself. And Obama, as you've pointed out, isn't fighting for it but instead is more or less acquiescing.

That's just wrong, for a president. He's making Jimmy Carter look ballsy by comparison.

We're going to look back on Obama as the biggest flash in the pan in American political history. Wow.

Your headline pretty much sums up the problem. Since Obama has been marketing his insipidity as if it were a flavor in its own right, we end up having to worry about what he's been sitting next to on the refrigerator shelf all this time.

"I don't know what's so awful about objecting to Zionism. Many thoughtful people do, including many Jews."

Many Jews? LOL, what have you been smoking? The Jews paid for that land with their blood many time over, and no stinking UN resolution equating racism with Zionism will change that. When you become an expert on Jewish history, then you can talk. Until then, por que no te callas la boca, chico?

Oh man, Rev. Wright once again takes the booby prize for the gift that keeps on giving. Wow, now Andrew kicks on the scene like Captain Obvious and tries to nail Wright down with his 'insight', 'in-depth (no pun intended)' analysis of how Andrew can no longer give Wright a pass. Hey Andrew, I know for a fact you read this blog, so I'm going to once again bust the little bit of remaining balls that you have. Faux indignation much?

Trying to elucidate what's really offensive about the Zionism comment.

I think it's the fact that Zionism isn't really a religion. It's a political and nationalistic movement based in religion. So by calling it a religion, he references the actual religion--Judaism--and transfers the insult to it. It's a subtle linguistic thing, but it's powerful.

Rev said...So -- rough estimate -- how many thoughtful people do you know who call Zionism "a gutter religion"?

a quick guess, most Muslims?

Though I don't, I think it is fair for a thoughtful person to be critical of Zionism, which is a politcal movement. To call it a religion makes zionism = Judaism, which is therefore anti-semitic speech rather than political discourse.

Wright is willing to destroy Obama's candidacy in order to promote himself.

He's lashing out against Obama in the same narrative way like the victimhood he portrays of all black people and the injustices done to them. In essence, this is political cannablism, with hot sauce.

And Obama, as you've pointed out, isn't fighting for it but instead is more or less acquiescing.

Obama has thrown so many people around his life under the bus to become President, he has no other way to feel other than a chastised child in the shadow of Wright. Man, this has the makings of all kinds of hero/villain mythologies doesn't it?

We're going to look back on Obama as the biggest flash in the pan in American political history. Wow.

When hasn't he been a flash in the pan. Ah yes, that winsome fire that ignites while cooking your favorite dish. Sauce anyone?

You will have to make a better distinction on the thoughtful Muslims that can distinguish between Zionism and Judiasm since most muslims around the world are illiterate and ignorant that Zionism and Judiasm are completely different. One a religion, the other a political movement. To them it's the same. Zionists are dirty, filthy Jews and dirty, filthy Jews are Zionists. Oh and Neocons too, which is just code for The Jews, which means Zionists.

To call it a religion makes zionism = Judaism, which is therefore anti-semitic speech rather than political discourse.

As far as Farakhan and Wright are concerned, they equate the two as the same. They will couch it any way they want to, but they are nothing more than elevated Jew haters regardless of the moniker that separates and distinguishes the two.

Of course, this statement implies a lot: "He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color." Is the good reverend saying he's glad he's black or that he wishes he were white? It's not at all clear.

What is clear is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is motivated by a strong hatred of all things American. I'm just hoping that he's not a member of the Northern part of the family!

Any 12 year old white kid who the stuffing beaten out of him the Dudley St. "T" station in 1968 for no more of a crime than being white can tell you Rev. Wright and his spiritual followers are racist pigs. I can still hear the crowd of thugs screaming "white motherf***ers!" 40 years later. "God damn America!" and everything that followed out of Wright's mouth is just as ugly and hateful to me as the "n" word is to black people.

pastafarian said..."Wasn't it just yesterday that you stated that the Democrats should nominate Obama, even if Hillary has a better chance in the general election?"

I didn't say what they should do. I simply observed:

"I think it is obvious that the superdelegates will pick Obama. They have their own self-interest to consider, not to mention the long-term interest of the party. The choice for Obama is clear — and it would be clear even if they knew Clinton would win and Obama will lose."

That's a prediction of how the cards will play out, knowing what I know about the various interests.

Of course, the cards are different today. Who expected Wright to egomaniacally seize center stage and try to dominate Obama?

I still think the Democrats can't afford to reject Obama. Today's events might paradoxically mean that is even more true. He can't be defeated on race.

This was a calculated, ugly, repulsive, vile display of arrogance, egotism, and self-regard.When Andrew Sullivan criticizes you for too much self-regard, that's a good indication you've gone around the bend!

The politics of guilt-by-association may seem persuasive to some (e.g., Joseph McCarthy), but not to me. My thoughts are that Wright's latest remarks:

1. Aren't news.2. Have nothing to do with the campaign.3. Reflect Wright's leftism.

That said, the problems with giving it to Hillary have more to do with the fact that she is losing by a number of metrics. It doesn't help her that Wright is in the news, because it doesn't change the popular vote count or earn her any pledged delegates. Could it earn her a flood of superdelegates? Perhaps. But, like Ann, I just don't see it.

I listened to Wright's Press Club Q&A live on the radio this morning while driving to work. That wasn't my plan, but that's what was on.

It was the worst press conference I've ever heard. He was pompous, dismissive and condescending in his tone, he was non-responsive to questions, and he was quick to attack the questioner rather than answer the question. I even thought it sounded like he was attacking the person who had the misfortune of being hired to screen questions from the crowd and ask them to him, but I may be mistaken on that, I didn't see the video of the conference.

On another thread, I said that Wright is a buffoon. He's even worse than that. He's a self-righteous jackass who thinks he's a lot more clever than he really is, and has forgotten that up until a few months ago, he was just another preacher in a pissant church that most people had never heard of. He's done terrible damage to Obama's campaign, and he either doesn't care or is to full of himself (without any justification for such pride) to know what he's done to the man who's supposed to be his friend.

"Since Obama has been marketing his insipidity as if it were a flavor in its own right, we end up having to worry about what he's been sitting next to on the refrigerator shelf all this time." - Zrimsek 4/28/08

...Wright needing to see Obama rejected by American voters

Almost makes you wonder if Bill and Jerimiah have a side bet on who can tank their candidate first.

MortYou are ever the Obama optimist, I'll hand you that. I disagree with the theory you and Ann apparently have that superdelegates will back Obama, but they're just a little masochistic in their desire to let things play out. There is nothing for an Obama leaning superdelegate to gain by waiting. He hasn't had a meaningful win since early March. What ARE they waiting for!

I disagree with the theory you and Ann apparently have that superdelegates will back Obama

Ann, how many supredelegates have their own election to consider? If you think their decision will be based on self-interest, you should also take that into account: the spectre of a down-ticket disaster.

"I don't know what's so awful about objecting to Zionism. Many thoughtful people do, including many Jews."

Revenent - So -- rough estimate -- how many thoughtful people do you know who call Zionism "a gutter religion"?

Drill SGT - a quick guess, most Muslims?

Though I don't, I think it is fair for a thoughtful person to be critical of Zionism, which is a politcal movement. To call it a religion makes zionism = Judaism, which is therefore anti-semitic speech rather than political discourse.

The problem with Zionism is it is a political movement that encompasses elements of religion and plenty of 19th, early 20th Century thinking on Jewish racial supremacy and mental prowness that make the KKK stuff seem tame by comparison.

So it isn't just Muslims that hold Zionism in disfavor. Most Latins, Asians, Europeans, and recently Africans now do as well. Sometimes resentments about Jews and Israeli state policy spill over into a blanket criticism of Zionism. Africans were once more well-disposed to Israel until Israel was linked to military and security support of S Africa and many bad African regimes.

Unfortunately for Israel, support of Zionism is limited to the USA, in steadily declining numbers, and minorities in Canada and a few European countries. Because the State of Israel and Zionism are wrapped in religion and preference for those of Jewish ethnicity - Jews can logically say that those that criticize either institution are criticizing Jews as a people and/or religion.Hence the "anti-Semite!" "anti-Semite!!" hysteria that used to shut down any criticism of Israel or Zionism, past involvement with communism, present with deconstructionism, POMO, multiculti, or too much Jewish influence over foreign policy or key sectors of other nations - is waning in effectiveness as WWII recedes and the weapon is overused.

Certainly, "anti-Semite" accusations no longer have any impact in the black community - and that is why Obama's Jewish billionaires who discovered him and nourished his political career and patronized he and his wife's careers at U of Chicago are silent on Wright and Farrakan and Obama.

Jews tried silencing Farrakan - attempting to ostracize him, bar him from Universities and media the Jews ran, but as Wright says - "when Farrakan talks, blacks listen" and his message gets out nationwide in communication channels Jews do not own....Jews can sometimes still quash blacks they dislike with donations to opponents and backroom conversations with Democrat Party bigwigs, like McKinney, but less so each year...

Now, I don't like Wright and I reject the whole black victim&entitlement mentality. I think that Wright is Obama's cross to bear, and should make Obama unelectable - but more for Wright's anti-American, anti-white sayings than any crap he says about Farrakan being a great man despite Farrakan criticizing a foreign country and it's ideology.

The message that Wrights biggest liability is his lack of love of our "Special Friend" is ridiculous in light of the global lack of love of Israel, Zionism, and the past & present impact of Jewish Elites. Sentiments a large sector of Americans also believe - and they have a lot more votes than the Likudnik Jewish-Americans and Christian Zionists do.

Wright is right that we do not call criticizing China and it's policies "racist" even though any criticism is directed at the ethnic Chinese responsible for it. And he points out that a large segment of America hero-worships Nelson Mandela, but when Mandela is asked to denounce Fidel Castro, Mandela says "no way" because Castro did more for black independence in S Africa than just about anyone and will remain honored. No simple guilt by association....

2. I wrote that giving it to Hillary for superdelegates is still very, very problematic for reasons unrelated to this story.

My honest opinion, which is not optimistic at all, is that the media is giving this so much play to complicate the race in Indiana, because an Obama loss in Indiana increases the chance of a brokered convention in Denver, which the press wants to cover. That is a very cynical and pessimistic point of view. But, no, this story does not suddenly lift Hillary out of the hole she is in or get superdelegates off the hook for giving it to her or, as Ann noted well, serve the long-term interests of the party. That's realism.

You just want to see Obama go down in flames, so you're reading that into this story. Since no flood of superdelegates is deciding this race prior to May 6th, what really matters is the outcome in Indiana.

Neither of us knows how this will factor into the Indiana outcome, which is up in the air.

Amongst the MANY insightful comments I wish to respond to, there is this one by Pogo:

And who exactly made him that color, except God? Is he God damning God as well?

Yeah, I didn't get his inference AT ALL, then. Can someone try to shed some light on it?

Is he, crazy hateful old fool that he is, actually BLAMING God for making him a black guy?

Or is it a shady reference to one of his ancestresses having been RAPED (he would say) by a white guy -- because, let's be honest, he's fairly light. Heck, he's even lighter than OBAMA, who is a true "mulato".

His other talking points, from Zionism to Farrakhan and the whole AIDs conspiracy theories -- well, that's the sadly "normal" rhetoric for many of the Left.

Garage, they're waiting and hoping that the voters will to the dirty deed for them. If Clinton wins Indiana and does well enough in North Carolina, and thereafter keeps winning, that gives them cover to do what they want to do while pointing the finger at the electorate.

He's done terrible damage to Obama's campaign, and he either doesn't care or is to full of himself (without any justification for such pride) to know what he's done to the man who's supposed to be his friend.

Why WHY isn't someone in the Obama camp reigning this guy in?? Send him to Barbados on holiday again!

(You know, it's a weird feeling when one actually feels sorry for a candidate one doesn't like and will never vote for)

You know why I don't think they can control him? Because unlike Bill Clinton, there are few, especially white people in the Left who can tell an older black gentleman to keep quiet.

The whole ideology of Liberal American race politics is built on the opposite of that.

We're stuck with these shenanigans, because no one has the courage to be called a racist.

If Clinton wins Indiana and does well enough in North Carolina, and thereafter keeps winning, that gives them cover to do what they want to do while pointing the finger at the electorate.

There is actually little proof that that's what they want.

Hillary wants time. That means a brokered convention. No one else wants a brokered convention. The superdelegates have agreed to decide by the end of the voting so there is time for party unity.

If Hillary is behind in the popular vote and in the pledged delegates, you aren't going to see an override. That you might see one if Obama loses every remaining contest by 30% margins isn't proof of the superdelegate collective intent right now. That would mean an utter collapse of his campaign.

That hasn't happened yet, and looks unlikely to happen in the next contests. If Obama wins in Indiana and North Carolina, that possibility is over. Either one still has to win an unexpected state to win. In the upcoming races, for Clinton that means North Carolina and for Obama that means Indiana. So the real question is, "Can Obama put Clinton away in Indiana?"

That is quite different than your analysis would suggest, especially since almost no one thinks Clinton is competitive in North Carolina, and Obama is spending in Kentucky (with little chance of winning) to bust her bank for the Indiana and North Carolina races.

PatCA,And the voter rolls. And the new voters. Ann detailed this. That's what she means by long-term interest of the party. The Clintons are the past, and that's not just rhetoric.

I have a feeling that Obama will go out and denounce wright finally and completely, and the media will swoon over him - "what courage Barack has to denouce a black minister." To the all loving of Obama media, it will be Obama's sister soulja moment. Will the MSN will "forget" that Obama spent 20 years with him and his young kids listening to the same rants as tears rolled down his cheeks. But perhaps I am being too cynical.

20 years of pew sitting through anti-jew, anti american, and anti-white rhetoric with your kids at your side and tears running down your cheecks. It sounds a lot like the post racial reconciliation we have been hearing about. Yet people are actually considering nominating Obama.... unbelievable.

I'd also note that since Obama has an insurmountable pledged delegate lead, this is more about how one closes out the campaign. If Obama manages these issues well and continues winning where he needs to and narrowing margins (or winning) where he isn't expected to, he's in fine shape.

It's reaching the point with Wright where people are actually going to be feeling sorry for Obama. It's almost as if he's a victim. Expect that next.

As for the superdelegates, barring something unforseen of monumental proportions, Obama simply can't be denied the nomination. To do so as it stands now would be much more destructive to the Dem party than would running Obama and losing by a landslide. They're stuck with him.

Wright was happy with Obama as long as he was the underdog. Good for his business. Now were he to win the nomination and on to the general the wheels would come off his race pimping and poverty hustling medicine show. Way too much money to lose. That is why the rat pack of Wright, Sharpton, Jackson and Farrakhan are doing their stand-up routine now. Barry is now becoming very bad for the industry. For the act to work he has to come this close to being the nominee but never the winner. Ruins the punchline if Barry wins the nomination and worse, the election. Close shave, now that is pure gold. And makes the ever so easily bribable Clinton's easier to deal with. You owe us and need us if want to have a prayer to win. Far from crazy they are shrewed businessmen who know their market exceedingly well.

Zionism is defined as the Jewish nationalist and liberation movement. Duscany why is that somehow more objectionable than the various Arab and African nationalisms? There 57 Islamic States are they also illegitimate?Cedaford has no problem with white nationalism thats his thing, only with Jews being brazen enough to have a postage country of their own. Funny thing, in Latin America where Zionism is being derided as he states, it is primarily in the newly socialist and quasi communist states. Ties in with the new/old left and the new/old national socialism. Somethings never change.

I can only hope that Obama is the democratic nominee--which will make John McCain the luckiest guy in the world. The biggest losers out of this whole campaign are liberal democrats and their MSM stooges. In addition, the Clintons are going to have a payback list a mile long.If the Dems dont nominate Hillary, they will be in the political wilderness for a long time.

Or maybe it was a poorly constructed reference to the idea that Farrakhan didn't set blacks in in chains and sold into slavery, but white people did.

Fair enough. But neither did I or anyone alive today in the US (unless they came from certain Arab lands perhaps). My ancestors didn't get here until after the civil war. So big deal. I am totally off the hook, no?

And why doies Wright say "me"? Certainly he means not himself but black people in general, but the hubris of Wright inserting "me" as a stand-in for all blacks is audacious, arrogant, and heretically messianic.

Somefeller said: I even thought it sounded like he was attacking the person who had the misfortune of being hired to screen questions from the crowd and ask them to him, but I may be mistaken on that, I didn't see the video of the conference.

You are not mistaken. I felt sorry for her.

Revenant said: Bah. I'm more of a Christian than Wright is, and I don't even believe in God.